Josh Kun is the inaugural vice provost for the arts at USC and professor of communication at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, where he is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair in cross-cultural communication. He is the founder and ongoing director of the Popular Music Project, a music and society research lab within the USC Annenberg Norman Lear Center. He is the former director of the USC Annenberg School of Communication and interim dean of the USC Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy and the USC Thornton School of Music. He is a senior scholar with the USC Schaeffer Institute for Public Policy & Government Service and their Center for Civic Society. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship (2016), a Berlin Prize (2018) and an American Book Award (2006), and was nominated for a 2025 Grammy Award in the category of Best Album Notes. In 2026, he was named a New America Fellow as a member of the Fellows Class of 2027.

He is the author of The Autograph Book of L.A.: Improvements on the Page of the City (Angel City Press, 2019); Double Vision: The Photography of George Rodriguez (Hat & Beard Press, 2018); To Live and Dine in L.A.: Menus and the Making of the Modern City (Angel City Press, 2015); Songs in the Key of Los Angeles: Sheet Music from the Collection of the Los Angeles Public Library (Angel City Press, 2013); And You Shall Know Us by the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Past as Told by the Records We’ve Loved and Lost, co-author with Roger Bennett (Crown, 2008); and Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (University of California Press, 2005).

He is the editor of The Tide Was Always High: The Music of Latin America in Los Angeles (University of California Press, 2017); Black and Brown in Los Angeles: Beyond Conflict and Coalition, co-editor with Laura Pulido (University of California Press, 2013); Sound Clash: Listening to American Studies, co-editor with Kara Keeling (John Hopkins University Press, 2012); Tijuana Dreaming: Life and Art at the Global Border, co-editor with Fiamma Montezemolo (Duke University Press, 2012); and The Song Is Not the Same: Jews and American Popular Music, co-editor with Lisa Ansell and Bruce Zuckerman (Purdue University Press, 2010). His articles and essays have appeared in numerous books, academic journals, exhibition catalogs and anthologies. As a journalist and critic, his writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Rolling Stone and many other publications. In 2023, he produced and co-hosted the short film series Cultures in the Crossfade, which used music to examine belonging and political polarization in the United States. He co-edits the book series Refiguring American Music for Duke University Press.

As a curator, his exhibitions, projects and public programs have appeared with Getty, The Los Angeles Public Library, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, California African American Museum, The Grammy Museum, Huntington Library and Art Museum, and more. As an artist, his work has appeared with SFMOMA, Prospect New Orleans and Steve Turner.